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With nearly 4 minutes left within the Brooklyn Nets‘ 128-124 win over the Miami Heat on Saturday evening, James Harden used a display from Jeff Green and weaved his approach into the lane, the place he all of the sudden discovered himself on their lonesome. However as a substitute of rising up for a straightforward mid-range jumper, Harden hesitated, then whipped a bounce go between Kevin Durant’s legs and out of bounds for a turnover.
It did not find yourself being a pivotal play, nevertheless it did spotlight an attention-grabbing development creating within the final three video games. Since Kyrie Irving’s return to the lineup, and the official begin of the Harden-Irving-Durant period, Harden has been a lot much less aggressive than standard when it comes to seeking to rating the ball.
Towards the Warmth, he completed with 12 factors — simply the fifth time he is scored fewer than 15 factors within the final 5 seasons — on 2 of 8 from the sphere. And in these previous three video games, Harden is averaging 17.3 factors, and has solely taken a mixed 36 pictures. Only for the sake of comparability, there have been three completely different video games final season with the Rockets the place he took greater than 36 pictures.
Somebody was going to must sacrifice when this trio got here collectively, and Harden seems to be the one taking the again seat to start out. That is not all that shocking on condition that Harden is the brand new man and by far one of the best playmaker of the bunch. For all of the jokes about his one-on-one play all through his profession, Harden actually is an excellent passer, and he is utilizing that skill to get his teammates open seems to be.
He dished out 11 assists within the win over the Warmth, and has had double-digit assists in each recreation since arriving in Brooklyn. Right here is splitting two defenders with a wonderfully positioned bounce go to get Jeff Inexperienced an open shot.
And he appears to be constructing chemistry with DeAndre Jordan within the pick-and-roll.
However for as good as a few of these seems to be have been, the Nets did not carry Harden in to be a pass-first level guard, and you’ll suppose in some unspecified time in the future he will look to attain extra typically — particularly when he is main lineups with out both of the opposite two stars.
It is nonetheless tremendous early on this course of, so you do not wish to draw any grand conclusions proper now, however that is undoubtedly one thing to regulate. Is it just a bit blip as Harden tries to get a really feel for his new scenario? Or will he proceed deferring to Durant and Irving all through the season?
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